No Diodon applet in the Notification Zone

[Christophe Lohr]

Hello,
  I'm using diodon version 1.11.2-1 and mate-desktop 1.26.0-1 from the Debian Bookworm distribution.
  I notice that the diodon applet is no more present in the Notification Zone of the Mate top-bar (side to other applets such as network power sound etc.)
I can't find the reason why; no messages in logs files, nor in .xsession-errors, even using the G_MESSAGES_DEBUG env variable. How may I investigate this issue? (and fix it ;-) )

Best regards

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

That debugging works you need to close all instances of Diodon first.

To do so run the following commands:

killall diodon
G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all diodon > diodon_debug.txt

This should add the debug log to `diodon_debug.txt`. Once done attach it here.

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Hello,
  Thank you for your message, Oliver. Here is the requested debug file. From my side, I don't see anything wrong with it. How can I find out more?

Regards

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

I tried to reproduce this on Debian Stable with Mate and the indicator appeared without any problem.

So could you try to run the following:

dconf write /net/launchpad/diodon/plugins/active-plugins "['indicator']"

this ensures that the indicator plugin is enabled in your configuration.

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Le 05/01/2022 à 12:42, Oliver Sauder a écrit :
> I tried to reproduce this on Debian Stable with Mate and the indicator
> appeared without any problem.

To be honest, I have to admit that I have another PC with the same
versions of debian mate diodon, and on which the applet works well...
There is something mysterious (magic?). It is very disturbing.

> So could you try to run the following:
>
> dconf write /net/launchpad/diodon/plugins/active-plugins "['indicator']"
>
>
> this ensures that the indicator plugin is enabled in your configuration.
>

Before trying this, I do:
   $ dconf read /net/launchpad/diodon/plugins/active-plugins
   ['indicator']

hum...

Then:
   $ dconf write /net/launchpad/diodon/plugins/active-plugins
"['indicator']"

Unfortunately, it still doesn't work
(I restarted the session, to be sure)
;-)

Regards

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Hello,
   Is there any way to check if the problem could be with the
Notification Zone rather than Diodon?

Regards
Christophe

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

Diodon uses Ayantana Indicators https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators/libayatana-appindicator. I've never had to debug indicators as it always worked so not sure how to go about this.

This said it seems Mate makes some configuration changes in terms of indicator. I have found this https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/ubuntu-mate-settings/blob/master/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/30_ubuntu-mate.gschema.override#L46

Maybe comparing those settings between the two MATE desktop you have might reveal where the problem is.

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Le 07/01/2022 à 18:54, Oliver Sauder a écrit :
> I have found this https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/ubuntu-mate-
> settings/blob/master/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/30_ubuntu-
> mate.gschema.override#L46
>
> Maybe comparing those settings between the two MATE desktop you have
> might reveal where the problem is.

Files are the sames on the two PCs.
(
/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.mate.panel.applet.notification-area.gschema.xml
/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/net.launchpad.Diodon.gschema.xml )

Y also look at values of relating dconf keys... it's the same... :-(
I can't understand. well...

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

I have a feeling the issue is most likely not Diodon related but indicator related.

So to confirm this do you have another app which uses the libayatana-indicator and see whether that shows up?

Another idea which came to my mind is that you might have a different theme on the two different machines and it cannot find the icon in one of them. But most likely this is not the case but wanted to throw in there to be sure.

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Le 11/01/2022 à 07:13, Oliver Sauder a écrit :
> I have a feeling the issue is most likely not Diodon related but
> indicator related.
>
> So to confirm this do you have another app which uses the libayatana-
> indicator and see whether that shows up?

I may need some guidance. Which app may I test?
I notice that Skype Zoom Slack does not appears in the indicator zone of
the "bad" mate session (but it does in the "good" mate session)
This tends to confirm that this is an indicator problem.
Here are applets that works well in the indication zone: NetworkManager
SoundManager IBus Clock
What else?

> Another idea which came to my mind is that you might have a different
> theme on the two different machines and it cannot find the icon in one
> of them. But most likely this is not the case but wanted to throw in
> there to be sure.

The two machines uses the same theme "Menta" of the mate package...
I tested the others proposed themes, without success.

Regards

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

As far as I know use Skype and Zoom the same technology for the indicator whereas the sound manger etc. have native implementations. So it really seems like you have an issue with application indicator or KStatusNotifierItem which there are called in the QT world.

So one thing is that you verify that you have https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-indicator-applet installed (there should be a deb package) and the applet is actually added to the panel.

For more assistant you best call out the the Mate desktop community itself as they can give you better feedback.

I am converting this to a question as it is not caused by Diodon directly.

[Oliver Sauder (sao)]

I am converting this as the issue is not caused by Diodon directly. The discussion can continue this way to see how to solve the issue or adding links to upstream support request etc.

[Christophe Lohr (christophe-lohr)]

Hello,

> So one thing is that you verify that you have https://github.com/mate-
> desktop/mate-indicator-applet installed (there should be a deb package)
> and the applet is actually added to the panel.

In fact, the mate-indicator-applet package is not installed on either of
my two machines. (this should be?)
The notification zone should be provided by something else. (how to know?)

However, I noticed that on the machine which does not show the diodon
applet, the package  ayatana-indicator-application  is also present
(relating to some previous use of xfce4?)
Surprisingly, removing this package fix the issue! (and reinstalling it
cause the issue again)
This package may somehow divert the notification feature. (?)

So: Bingo! There is a workaround to this issue: remove the
ayatana-indicator-application package.
It's good to know (but this does not provide too many explanations on
the why ... )

Many thanks for your help.
Best regards,
Christophe